After graduating in 1977 Hadid went to work for Koolhaas and Zenghalis in the Netherlands.

Three years later she returned to London and opened her own firm, Zaha Hadid Architects, and at the same time began teaching.

Throughout the 1980s Hadid gained a reputation for her sweeping, dramatic designs, however she struggled to bring any of them to fruition.

Her first real commission came in 1993, when furniture manufacturer Vitra invited her to design a fire station to sit adjacent to its factory.

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Zaha Hadid designed the London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympics

The sleek, angular building made of concrete and glass never served as a station, and instead became an exhibition space.

A year later Hadid won a competition to design a new Opera House in Cardiff.

The Welsh Government refused to pay for her design, a “glass necklace” of asymmetrical buildings, and instead a new rugby stadium was built.

For the next decade or so Hadid continued to lecture, and her proposed designs won her favour among the architecture community.

At the turn of the millennium Hadid’s career finally took off.

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Sheik Zayed Bridge by Zaha Hadid

In 1997 she was commissioned to design a new Contemporary Arts Centre in Cincinnati, Ohio. The angular, concrete building opened in 2000 and made Hadid the first woman to design an art museum in the US.

In 2002 she won the competition to design a new administration building for BMW in Leipzig, Germany – a glass and concrete pavilion raised above street level on pylons.

Later projects included the Sheik Zayed Bridge in Abu-Dhabi – a 235 metre long wave of concrete, the Serpentine Sackler Gallery in Glasgow and the London Aquatics Centre, built for the 2012 London Olympics.

In 2012 Hadid was made a Dame for services to architecture.

She died of a heart attack in March 2016, leaving behind a host of unfinished projects and a a legacy as one of the most important architects in history.